Recently I was party to a conversation where a newbie was asking about a couple of boats in the 34-36 foot range (one of them being the CAL 34) and listening to the amount of advice that featured go bigger... Well, to be truthful, it got my hackles up!
Right now, small and smaller makes sense. Let me put it a different way. OK? It makes LOTS of SENSE! Sure, bigger has more room and more storage but why do most people feel the need of more STUFF? Sailing from point to point carrying stuff you don't use is not so bright...
A lot of the folks we meet on bigger boats have area of the boat they never use... Those extra cabins for guests are so seldom used that in a lot of cases the only time they even get looked at is when someone visits (a rare thing) or worse the extra cabins simply become storage for unused and badly placed ballast.
Throw in the fact that once you hit the thirty-six foot and larger envelope, things get bigger, more expensive and more importantly, bigger than many folks can deal with these days without added mechanical and electrical systems (spelled too expensive oomph).
While we know that "So It Goes" is a kiss smaller than optimum with our collection of guitars, film gear, dive gear, bikes,tools and an over fondness for books the CAL 34 is such a great size to sail, so easy to handle and has operating costs even the most destitute boat bum can manage (and I speak with personal experience on this) that the desire to go bigger is met with yet another over-cunning plan to keep it small.
Even if we were to go larger, as we keep threatening to do, we are not talking about a fifty footer or even forty-five, but we'd hope that we could get the next Loose Moose right in the thirty-eight foot zone with anything over forty feet being a deal breaker.
Of course... If you do decide you just have to have a fifty-eight foot "Whatever" you can make all of our lives a whole lot better by simply not going around bitching all the time about how stuff on boats costs too much, the shameful dockage rates and how expensive it is to cruise... You made the bed, sleep on it.
Rant over!
Plans Change, Martinique version
1 week ago